Here is a link to an article written by Good Green Builders for the current edition of Urban Garden Magazine. It is all about creating a community greenhouse that would provide four families with fresh vegetables throughout the year. Check it out and let us know what you think. We hope that you enjoy the article.
http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2010/04/how-to-feed-four-families-with-a-hydroponic-greenhouse/
Managing your pH is very important when growing hydroponically. It is critical for pH to remain in the range of 5.0-6.0 with an absolute maximum of 6.5. At these levels nutrients will remain dissolved in the nutrient solution and therefore available for uptake by the root system. If the pH of the nutrient solution is higher than 7.0 some of the important elements can precipitate and become unavailable to the roots. This can cause plumbing blockages as the elements precipitate out of the nutrient solution. As for the other side of the pH scale, lower pH levels tend to have little affect on the stability of the nutrient solution. Adjusting your pH and knowing when to do it is also imperative to a successful crop cycle.
The pH should be adjusted on a few different occasions. First, it should be adjusted when the nutrient solution is first made. Second, the pH should be adjusted after topping off the nutrient solution with water or additives, especially if they are highly alkaline. Lastly, in a re-circulating system, pH should be checked on a daily basis because the uptake of water and nutrients causes pH to change. There are a few different ways to minimize the fluctuations in you pH of your nutrient solution.
The first way to minimize the pH fluctuations in your nutrient reservoir is to use a brand that is pH buffered, especially when using highly alkaline water. The other thing that you should do is to supply two gallons of nutrient per large plant. If you don’t do this, your pH fluctuations will be greater, particularly during the hot and dry months where water uptake and evaporation are excessive.
Article by, Brett McCormick, co-founder of Good Green Builders. Good Green Builders is a hydroponic grow room/ greenhouse builder in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information or a free consultation, call today, (415) 246-8055.
When managing your indoor grow room it is important to understand the benefits of CO2 enrichment and how to maximize the CO2’s effectiveness on your plants. CO2 enrichment will promote optimal photosynthesis generally resulting in higher yields. The most common and effective type of CO2 enrichment is through bottled CO2 and combustion generators. The placement of your CO2 enrichment device is very important. Studies have been done that conclude that the enrichment should take place in the upper third part of the canopy because this is where photosynthetic activity is at its highest.
There are two properties of CO2 that you need to consider when enriching your grow room with CO2. The first property is the weight of CO2. CO2 will drop to the ground because it is heavier than air. For example, at 77 F, CO2 weighs 66 ounces per three cubic feet compared to air, which weighs 42 ounces per three cubic feet. The next principle that needs to be taken into consideration is the fact that cold CO2 will descend to the floor and hot CO2 will rise to the ceiling of your grow room. Diffusion is also responsible for the movement of CO2, although it will not travel very far with just simple diffusion. Diffusion, in this instance, is where the gas will move from places of higher concentration to places that have a lower concentration.
To ensure that you have a homogeneous CO2 concentration, especially in larger grow rooms; it may be necessary to have multiple CO2 enrichment devices. Location is also very important; you want to make sure that you place your CO2 source as far away from the exhaust system as possible. Plants will use up the available CO2 very quickly and because this gas diffuse slowly it is important to have multiple oscillating fans to make certain that there is a homogeneous mixture of CO2 in your grow room.
Article by, Brett McCormick, co-founder of Good Green Builders. Good Green Builders is a hydroponic grow room/greenhouse contractor in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information or a free consultation, call today, (415) 246-8055.
Constructing a sealed hydroponic grow room can be more expensive to set up, but you are able to create a totally controlled environment where every aspect of the plants growth can be manipulated. A sealed room is exactly what it sounds like, completely sealed, there aren’t any holes or vents to the outside from your indoor grow room. The first grow factor to control is the temperature.
Every indoor gardener knows that it is vital to the health of the plants to control temperature and to ensure that there aren’t any large fluctuations. The way that you deal with the heat from all of your lamps, dehumidifiers, pumps and ballasts, is by using an A/C system. The rule of thumb for deciding how big of unit is necessary to cool your sealed grow room is 4000 British Thermal Units, or BTU’s, per 1000 Watts of lighting. After temperature is dialed in, the next issue would be enriching your air with CO2.
CO2 is essential for pants to be able to photosynthesize. There are two standard ways to inject CO2 into your grow environment. One of them, which is more common among larger setups of 6000 Watts or more, is using a burner, where propane or natural gas is lit and the off gas produces CO2. The next method would be to open a bottle of CO2 and enrich the air directly. Many growers have found that having CO2 enriched air can produce up to 30% more yield. Next lets look at humidity.
Humidity is important to control, especially in the flowering stage of a plants life cycle, so you don’t create an environment where mold and mildew will thrive. Using a dehumidifier can control humidity. Much like an A/C unit, a dehumidifier can be purchased in many sizes and it is important to select on that fits your room size.
In a sealed room, you are able protect your plants from negative outside influences and at the same time, create a perfect environment for your plants to thrive.
Article by, Brett McCormick, co-founder of Good Green Builders. Good Green Builders is a hydroponic grow room/Greenhouse contractor in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information or a free consultation, call today, (415) 246-8055.
Pests and other pathogens can make growing indoors somewhat difficult. It is all about proper management of your indoor grow room or greenhouse. Preventative measures are always the best way for pest and pathogen management but sometimes these little critters and fungi spores find their way in to your grow room and begin to thrive. One new technology that is being used in commercial greenhouses and grows rooms is the use of UV-C T5 lamps.
UV, or ultraviolet, refers to a broad spectrum of light, anything from 100-400 nanometers. Ultraviolet has been further broken down into subcategories, and UV-C is the category that we are interested in. It is the section of UV between 185-280 nanometers. UV-C rays have the highest energy and is the arguably the most dangerous part of UV. UV-C rays can destroy anything from viruses, mold, bacteria, and mildew to plant pests like spider mites. Although it is successful in killing unwanted diseases and pathogens, it needs to be closely monitored because it can be harmful to not only you but your plants as well.
UV-C lamps can be used to sterilize a grow room before use, even though it is still recommended to clean everything with a weak bleach solution. Another possible application for UV-C lamps is to have them in your indoor garden and have them turn on for a few seconds to a minute depending on the wattage of the lamps. The UV-C rays only kill what they hit so it is necessary to place them in intervals in-between the plants to ensure that the plants are getting hit from every angle.
There is still more research needed for this application, as far as dosage of UV light, how far from the plant lamps should be placed, how long between dosages, but this will be a way for companies to reduce their dependence on chemical insecticides.
Article by, Brett McCormick, co-founder of Good Green Builders. Good Green Builders is a hydroponic grow room and Greenhouse builder in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information or a free consultation call today, (415) 246-8055.
Source: UrbanGardenMagazine.com
Below are a few more ways that temperature can be controlled in you indoor grow room. Oscillating fans are a great way to control temperature and ensure that the heat doesn’t build up in one area. They wont lower the overall temperature of your garden but they will help to make sure plants don’t shut down due to overheating. Also, during winter months, if you have a space heater, oscillating fans will help distribute the warm air around the indoor grow room. Managing the temperature of your garden is very important but it is also imperative that you control the temperatures of your nutrient reservoir.
The temperature of your nutrient solution should be in the range of 60-75F. The ideal temperature is 65F because this is where water holds the most oxygen. Letting the temperatures of fall below 50F or above 80F could be disastrous to your root systems. To control temperature in a nutrient reservoir a reservoir chiller or a aquarium heater may be used. Make sure that if you do use an aquarium heater that it is plugged into a grounded plug, and that it doesn’t rest on the bottom or the side of the reservoir.
To speed up the rooting process of your cuttings you can put them on a heating mat. Keeping them 10F warmer than the ambient air will speed up rooting on cuttings and increase their survival rate. All you need to do is place a heating mat underneath the tray of cuttings. This can speed up rooting of clones from two weeks to only three days. These are a few ideas on how to control temperature in you indoor grow room.
Article by, Brett McCormick, co-founder of Good Green Builders. Good Green Builders is a grow room contractor in Oakland, Ca. For more information or a free consultation call today, (415) 246-8055.
Source: Hydroponics.com
This article will give you some insight on different ways that you can control the temperature of your indoor grow room. As explained in the previous article, temperature is one of the most important grow factors to control in order to promote healthy and vigorous plants. One of the main ways to control temperature is with an exhaust fan, this will help you keep your grow room temperature to an ideal 70-75F. A quality fan should be able to exhaust your room of the stale air in about five minutes and should be turned on once an hour. In conjunction with the exhaust fan you will need an intake fan to bring in cool, CO2 enriched air from either an adjacent room or outdoors. Another thing that you could do is hook up the exhaust fan to a thermostat, once the temperature in the grow room reaches its designated limit, the fan will turn on and exhaust the hot stale air form the room.
If you are having heat problems due to your lamps, an air-cooled reflector might provide some relief. An air-cooled reflector is an airtight reflector that runs an inline with a fan to take all of the heat from the bulb and exhausts it out of the garden. This will allow you to bring the lights closer to the plants than normal, which will greatly increase the efficiency of your lights and should lead to greater yields. These are a few ideas to help control the temperature in your grow room. More ideas are to follow.
Article by, Brett McCormick, co-founder of Good Green Builders. Good Green Builders is a grow room contractor in Oakland, Ca. For more information or a free consultation call today, (415) 246-8055.
Source: Hydroponics.com
As many of you know, there are numerous factors that go into creating an ideal environment for your indoor hydroponic grow room. Temperature is one of the most important factors to control within an indoor grow. This can also be one of the most difficult grow factors to control especially in the cool winter months and during hot summers. When growing in a small area lights and ballasts will raise the temperatures to a dangerous high in no time. Most gardeners don’t know that controlling the temperature in very specific ways can help them achieve a superior crop.
First of all, it is important to have a minimum and maximum thermometer. Without this tool it will be impossible for a gardener to know the exact fluctuations between nighttime and daytime temperatures. It is essential that there isn’t more than a 10-15 degree F difference between the two different temperatures. If your temperatures fluctuate more than this desired amount you will risk stressing or shocking your plants. Daytime temperature should remain around 70-75F. If temperatures drift higher than 95F, not only will the plant’s enzyme production be shut down, photosynthesis will stop due to the stomas in the leaves closing in order to conserve water.
If you are enriching your air with CO2 an ideal temperature range is 80-85F. This temperature range promotes the exchange of gases between the plants and the environment. Also it can speed up the process of photosynthesis. A plant in an environment at 86F will perform carbon extraction from CO2 twice as fast than a plant in a 68F environment.
Another reason to control your grow room’s temperature is because biological processes are sped up exponentially with certain temperatures. Spider mites can reproduce up to 10 times faster with every degree that the temperature rises. The same principle can be applied to fungi, molds, mildew, and bacteria, which can spread more rapidly when temperatures in the grow room exceed 90F. Higher daytime temperatures coupled with low nighttime temperatures will cause condensation to form on the leaves. This condensation promotes mold, mildew and other biological processes that can harm your plants.
Article by, Brett McCormick, co-founder of Good Green Builders. Good Green Builders is a grow room contractor in Oakland, Ca. For more information or a free consultation call today, (415) 246-8055.
Source: Hydroponics.com
The majority of indoor gardeners are using 1000-Watt High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lamps to light their plants and are still using magnetic ballasts. Believe it or not this technology has been around for more than 30 years in its same form. If you think of the computer industry a lot has changed in that same time frame. This was because of all of the human ingenuity and the demand for more from the consumer side. This is hopefully what will happen in the near future for indoor horticulture lighting.
We don’t need a Ph.D. in Photobiology to know that the sun is the only benchmark for new technologies in the indoor lighting field. Plants have adapted over millions of years to best exploit the solar energy generated from the sun. How plants relate to light can be related to how we as humans hear, by frequency. One of the primary reasons that indoor gardeners have used HPS bulbs is because NASA did a study basically stating that plants are efficient at using red light. HPS bulbs do a great job at promoting vigorous plants but they only provide plants with a limited light spectrum and a lot of heat in the infrared part of the spectrum. As we all know, heat can be a nemesis to your indoor garden if not taken care of properly.
There are alternative lighting systems out there that will provide a fuller spectrum of light and produce much less heat but they are not very economical and in some case not even in the stores. More information will be provided on the future of indoor horticulture lighting soon.
Article by, Brett McCormick, co-founder of Good Green Builders. Good Green Builders is a grow room contractor in Oakland, Ca. For more information or a free consultation call today, 415-246-8055.
Source: Urbangardenmagazine.com
When constructing your own hydroponic grow room one must consider all of the factors essential to the growth of your plants. It is understood that while some factors are more important than others, they are all part the big picture and must remain in balance to obtain the best results. One of these factors that promote a healthy plant is the movement of air. Air movement is very important for a few different reasons.
Often times indoor gardeners believe that more is better and don’t realize that more can actually hurt their indoor garden environment. An exhaust fan is one of the most important pieces of equipment in an indoor grow. This is because it helps regulate temperature, CO2 levels and relative humidity. A quality exhaust fan should be able to remove the volume of air in the room in three to five minutes. This process of removing hot air and replacing it with cold air (through an intake fan) is easier in the winter months due to outside temperatures. With that said, it is much harder to control temperatures in the summer months.
There are a few different things that you can do when trying to lower the temperature of your grow room in the summer months. One of them is turning your lights on in the middle of the night. Another solution is having air-cooled reflector lights that has its own exhaust system. This will remove the heat of the bulbs before it reaches the indoor grow room.
There are many pests and diseases (mold, mildew, spider mites) that can be prevented through the proper movement of air in an indoor hydroponic garden.
Article by, Brett McCormick, managing partner of Good Green Builders. Good Green Builders is an indoor grow room contractor in Oakland, Ca. Call today for a free consultation, (415) 246-8055.
<small>Source: Hydroponics.com</small>